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You huffed an annoyed breath as the lock clinked dangerously, easing off the pressure on the second tumbler. Furrowing your brow, you twisted the lockpick to the left, but you could feel it seize in place, and scrunched your nose in concentration, trying to unsnag it without breaking the tool.
“Come now darling, you can’t wield the lockpick like you would a weapon, it needs a delicate touch. Don’t you sew?” Astarion caught your wrist in his hand, gently twisting it so the lockpick moved into a neutral position.
You drew him a look over your shoulder, “Do I look like I sew?”
“You’re right, your tunic is a mess,” he flicked imaginary dirt off your shoulder. “Regardless, be gentle. We can’t afford to break all of our tools, now can we?”
“Your tools. Astarion, I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this.”
“Hush, of course you can,” pushing your cheek around with his finger, focusing you in on the lock, he placed a gentle hand on your elbow, supporting the weight, “I’m an excellent teacher. Now, gentle pressure, yes?”
You rolled your eyes, but gripped the lockpick lightly in your hands, finding the first pin with relative ease, considering how many times you’d already had to restart.
“Very good,” he murmured in your ear.
As gently as you could, you placed the pin in its chamber, hearing the barely perceptible click as it moved into place. Twisting slightly upwards, you felt around for the second pin, managing to pull back as you felt yourself going too far. Your pick hit something, and you delicately pushed at it, the pin slipping over the tip of the tool, and with a patience you didn’t know you possessed, popped it in its place.
“And just like that, you’ve already made wonderful progress. Keep going, my love, don’t get too eager, you don’t want to make a mistake now.”
You felt him lean forward to look at what you were doing with his sharp eyes, his chest flush with your back, the muscles underneath his armour tensed, as if waiting to leap into action, should you need the help.
Determined that you wouldn’t, you felt around for the third pin. It eluded you as you swivelled your lockpick this way and that, like it didn’t exist at all. You felt the slow, growing heat of frustration ripple up your spine, your head growing hot as you gritted your teeth.
“Calm,” Astarion gently chided, “Sewing, not swords.”
You swallowed the urge to shoot him a snappy retort, not in the mood to be chastised when your temper was threatening to flare, so instead you took a practised deep breath, taking your time as you moved the tools in your grip once more.
After an extended moment, you felt it -- barely there, how many times had you missed it? -- and you tucked the pin into its place, a shaky exhale leaving you punctuating the small victory.
“Yes! Very good,” you felt in his excitement, his other hand move to grab the crook of your hip in an innocuous move that did nothing but distract you, “Alright, there should only be one more pin left in one of these locks, if they’re the same as the rest in here. I believe in you.”
Your eyes fluttered shut for a second, gathering your will to remain level headed, before zeroing in on the damned lock. Left, right, the pin was nowhere to be found. Your brow darkened as you focused on what you could feel, the free movements of the pick followed by sudden tension, easing off, the ebb and flow of the mechanism. As you moved your lockpick back to a more central position, just off to the side you could feel the slightest of tremors through the metal. Astarion squeezed your hip, hearing something you couldn’t, and you took it as encouragement even as your heart leapt into your throat.
Tucking the pin in, you heard something click into place, your lockpick suddenly feeling a lot looser in the lock.
“This part is deceptive,” Astarion cautioned, his voice low, his face straining to reach over your tensed shoulder, “You’ll want to twist it round immediately, but you’ve got to make sure that the right amount of pressure is on this side,” he motions towards one pick, “Whilst making sure the pins stay in as you twist this side at the same time. Alright?” you feel a soft kiss pressed to the back of your head, “At the same time,” he emphasised.
You were unsure, so unwilling to let your hard work go to waste when you’d come so far. You steadied your grip, pressing one pick against the lock, whilst you manoeuvred the other to twist it open. You made slow progress, making sure there wasn’t any unnecessary tension on either of the tools, and as you rotated them, you could hear the soft clicking of the chest slowly opening. Suddenly, and without warning, there was a sudden, hard block against the pick, and the delicate tool snapped ungraciously in your hands.
You blinked in shock, before, “MOTHERFUCKER!” You screamed, throwing the shattered lockpick to the other side of the room, your chest heaving with rage. “I can’t fucking do it, that’s it. Fuck this stupid fucking chest, I bet there’s not even anything good in it, and fuck lockpicking. Who even needs to steal shit anyway? We don’t. We’re living the rest of our lives as honest, hard-working farmers and we’re never taking another thing that isn’t ours ever again, do you hear me?”
You whipped around to point accusingly at Astarion, but stopped short when you caught sight of him. For one, he was close. Incredibly close. Your heavy breath pushing your chest to his immediately tempered whatever rant you had been on before. But secondly, and perhaps insultingly, you could see him silently laughing at you, making no attempts at hiding it either.
“What?” You demanded, “What’s so funny?”
“You, darling. You really are terribly adorable when you’re angry.”
“Fuck you,” you said, without any bite.
“I think the words you’re looking for are: Oh Astarion, picker of locks, breaker of hearts, may you ever be so kind to pretty please unlock this chest for me? I am in dire need of your superior expertise.”
You tsked loudly, “Hey Astarion,” you said dispassionately, “You wanna get this lock for me?”
“Hm? What was that darling?”
“... Please?”
“For you my love? Of course I shall.”
He lightly pushed you out of the way, taking out his own set of lockpicks. Setting them on the ground, he gracefully produced a pair of the damned things, swirling them with practised ease in the lock. Head cocked to the side, he tapped, one, two, three, four, before moving them ninety degrees, grinning as he heard the tell-tale click of the lock opening.
“I loosened it up for you.” You mumbled.
“Naturally,” he tutted in faux sympathy, moving out of your way so you could look inside. “Anything interesting?”
“Ugh, no. A few gold, but not enough to pay back for my sanity.”
“How about this?”
You ducked your head from out of the chest, “How about w--?” His lips caught yours, and your eyes instinctively slid closed, a surprised noise caught at the back of your throat. He pulled your waist into his body, his other hand’s thumb swiping gently across your cheek as he stole the breath from your lungs, leaving you dizzy.
Eventually he pulled away, eyes glimmering with an easy contentment that had come to suit him over the months after the horrors of that house of cards he called home for so long finally toppled.
“Yeah,” you murmured, “Yeah, that’ll do.”
He grinned, a flash of white catching under the soft candlelight of the room. “Glad I could help.”
Your hand twisted lightly on top of his armour, directly over his heart as you smiled gently at him, anger long forgotten in the swell of affection you felt for him, “If this is my reward for failing, I think I should do it more often.”
He chuckled, “No, that wasn’t because you failed. That was because you’re you. Wonderful, gorgeous, ill-tempered you.”